


A Much Needed Distraction

by RosalindInPants



Category: The Great Library Series - Rachel Caine
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-10-30 12:25:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17828534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosalindInPants/pseuds/RosalindInPants
Summary: Wolfe and Santi finally get some alone time after leaving Jess's room in chapter 27 of Smoke and Iron.





	A Much Needed Distraction

They left Jess's room arm in arm, and if Wolfe leaned a little more heavily on Santi than he normally would have, he figured he'd earned it. He was tired, and sore, and more than a little irritated with the man he loved. Wolfe had made plans while he was showering, plans that did not involve having to walk down the hall and stop his lover from attacking his student. Putting on clothes had taken more effort than he would have liked, if he was being honest with himself, and that effort wouldn't have been necessary if Nic had just done what he was supposed to and fetched a bottle of wine and  _waited_. True, he had taken longer than he should have in the shower, but Nic should have understood that it took time to scrub away the lingering stench of the prison. There had also been the problem of cleaning up scratched-open scars and getting blood out from under the stubs of bitten nails, but those were the things he hoped to keep hidden. Concealing the evidence of just how broken he was.

And he was broken; he knew that beyond doubt even as he held onto hope that he could keep himself together until the cracks healed. Even with the prison left behind and Santi at his side, the memories floated closer to the surface than they belonged. Exhausted as he was, he doubted he could sleep. The nightmares would come for him. What Wolfe needed was a distraction. Fortunately, he was in the company of a man who could be very distracting, indeed. Wolfe just had to hope his partner was in the mood for the same sort of distraction he had in mind.

To that end, as soon as they were through the door of their own room, after the lock slid into place - _the lock was important, the lock would keep anyone from coming for them_  - Wolfe pushed Santi into the nearest wall, pinned him there with a hand on each shoulder, and kissed him. Santi gave a little gasp of surprise, and then his arms were around Wolfe's back and his tongue meeting Wolfe's with all the enthusiasm Wolfe could have hoped for. The kisses they had shared in the courtyard had been pleasant enough, warm and sweet, but this was what he really needed, something consuming enough that he could imagine the weakness in his legs was from passion.

When the kiss ended, he met Santi's eyes and licked his lips with a devious grin. He had a very nice, seductive line planned.

Santi cut him off before he could get the first word of it out. "No, Chris, we talked about this. I'm not letting you push yourself too hard. You got your shower, now I get to see how bad those bruises are. You can seduce me after that." That patient tone should have been reassuring, but it grated on Wolfe's already raw nerves.

"I am fine, Nic, as I just told you." He drew back, willing his legs to hold steady, and scowled at his uncooperative lover. "I was well enough to go and fetch you, was I not? You owe me an apology for that.  _You were supposed to be here_." He hadn't meant to show so much of the panic he had felt when he came out of the shower and into an empty bedroom, but there was no taking it back, so he just narrowed his eyes and kept glaring as if he had meant to snap like that.

Santi had the decency to look abashed. "You're right. I'm sorry. I should not have left you alone, and I will make it up to you in any way you desire, but please let me have a look at you first?" He reached out and took Wolfe's hand. "Come on, you'll need to take those clothes off regardless."

There was no arguing with that logic, even if Wolfe thought he could stand much longer to continue the debate, which he didn't. Having his legs go out from under him would definitely undermine his argument. Conceding defeat, he let Santi lead him to the bed. He noticed that Nic had cluttered the nightstand with all his hopes and fears: books, naturally, and a spare pair of reading glasses, but also enough bandages and medicines to supply a Medica in the field, and in between those, the wine Wolfe had asked for, already uncorked, two wine glasses, and a little bottle of oil. He had to smile at the sight of that little bottle and the many delightful possibilities it offered. His odds of getting what he wanted were looking up.

He sat down on the edge of the bed, sinking into a mattress that felt impossibly soft after so many nights on a hard bunk, and looked up at Santi, who had picked up the wine to pour. The man knew him entirely too well. "Could I at least ask you to take off that shirt? Give me something to look at while you indulge in your need to fuss over me?"

"That's fair." Santi handed a full glass of wine to Wolfe, leaving the bottle and the second glass on the nightstand. He leaned down to kiss the top of Wolfe's head, then stripped off the shirt with military efficiency, folding it and putting it on top of the dresser.

Sipping the wine, a crisp, refreshing white, Wolfe took in the firm lines of his lover's muscles and the familiar patterns of his tattoos and scars. There were some new marks on him as well: fading bruises, half-healed scrapes, nothing much worse than he sometimes came home from confiscation duty with. Wolfe took some satisfaction in the knowledge that the men responsible for Santi's injuries were more than likely dead. He wished he could say the same about his own. _That_ thought inspired him to finish the wine in a gulp he barely tasted.

Standing in front of Wolfe again, Santi gently took hold of Wolfe's chin between his thumb and forefinger and tilted Wolfe's face up for a better look at his bruised cheek. "It doesn't hurt," Wolfe said as Santi stroked a finger over the mark, feeling for damage to the bone beneath. It felt a bit sensitive, but that was mildly unpleasant, at most. No more worthy of worrying about than Santi's bruises.

"Hmm." Santi placed a soft kiss on the bruised cheek, then released his grip on Wolfe's chin and took the empty wine glass from him. "Do you want to take the shirt off yourself, or do you want my help?"

Wolfe appreciated that he asked. Having someone else take off his clothes, particularly without warning, could be... troubling, at times. He brought his hands up to the first button, conscious of the fine tremors running through them. He'd gotten the thing on. He could get it off again. Looking at the lovely sight that was Santi's bare chest, he reminded himself of how good it would feel to have that exposed skin against his own, and shoved down the lurking memories and the ever-present fears that his lover would take one look at him and declare him too ugly, too broken, too scarred. The first button yielded easily enough, but the second proved more difficult, and the third simply refused to come undone. He glared down at the thing, but there was nothing wrong with it. An ordinary button in an ordinary buttonhole, and his hands shaking too badly to get one through the other.  _Yes, alluringly sit and quiver in his general direction, that's just the thing to charm him out of his pants,_ he snarled at himself, for all the good his self-loathing could do.

Santi's hands closed around his, drawing them away from the unyielding button. He had gone down on one knee, and he brought first one hand, then the other to his lips, kissing each finger before clasping them in his own, steadying them. "Chris, you're tired. Let me help?"

Better to let Nic do it than make a fool of himself trying and failing again. Wolfe nodded, and rested his hands at his sides on the bed while Santi set to work on the buttons. Being undressed could be an enjoyable thing, and he focused on the brush of his partner's fingers against his skin as he undid the buttons, then, after another nod from Wolfe, slipped the shirt off of his shoulders. As he finished taking the shirt off, Santi leaned in for a quick embrace, a teasing brush of skin on skin that left Wolfe all the more impatient to get the examination over with.

With Wolfe's shirt in his hands, Santi moved back to take in what Wolfe already knew was an unpleasant sight. Scars scratched open. Ribs showing more than they already had been after Philadelphia. Bruises like ink stains splattered across the front of his body and along both arms. Wolfe looked down at his feet, not wanting to see the pity in Santi's eyes.

The shirt fell to the floor, unfolded. "God, Chris, why did you tell me you didn't need a Medica?" 

"Because I don't." On Wolfe's admittedly skewed scale of pain, these current injuries hardly rated. He'd had far worse. He didn't want to think about that.

Santi leaned in, fingers lightly tracing over a cluster of bruises on Wolfe's side, probing at the ribs beneath. "You could have cracked a rib here. We should have a Medica look at it, just to be sure."

It hurt, a bit, to have those bruises touched, but Wolfe wasn't about to show it, not when he was trying to convince Nic not to worry about him so they could get this over with. "I do not have a broken rib." His ribs didn't feel broken. A tendril of memory crept just beneath the dark and churning waters of his mind. He willed it back down.

Santi's hand continued its exploration, down past Wolfe's ribs, a path they had traced many times before. It might have been more enjoyable if he didn't keep poking the sore spots along the way. "How can you be so certain?"

Wolfe gave him the look he reserved for his students' most idiotic questions. He knew from experience, experience that he was trying very hard not to think about for fear it might swallow him.

Undeterred by Wolfe's glare, Santi pressed on. "You told me they just handled you a little roughly. This is worse than that. If I caught any of my soldiers beating a prisoner like this..."

Their standards for such things had become so very, horribly different. No doubt Santi would never tolerate from his own soldiers the sort of treatment the Archivist's men had given Wolfe, but a few kicks and punches, no matter how savagely delivered, were nothing. Wolfe knew too well just how bad a beating could get. And in thinking of it, he let the memory escape from its hole. Too late, he recognized the slip in his carefully guarded thoughts.

It dragged him into the dark.

_It lasted only a few seconds, at most, but for those seconds, he was in Rome again. He could feel the iron cuffs digging into his skin as he hung from his wrists, struggling to get scraped and battered feet beneath himself again before he dislocated a shoulder. Blood dripped down his back. His hair clung to his face in tangled, sweat-soaked clumps. Every breath was agony, drawn through a throat raw from screaming into lungs that pressed against shattered ribs. Pain was everywhere, bright lines and throbbing spots of it, nerves crying out for relief that wouldn't come. He could smell the blood, the stones, the lingering stench of smoke and unwashed bodies and misery that never left the place. He could hear the rattle of chains, the soft padding of footsteps circling him. Something heavy tapped against a leather-gloved hand, then swung at him, barely missing. He whimpered in terror, knowing that soon the threatened blow would become a real one, and it would be worse than what came before. The next one was always worse._

And then, cutting through it, the sound of Nic's voice, close to his ear, speaking with calm authority. "Christopher. It isn't real. Only a memory, and it can't hurt you anymore. I am here, and I am not going to let anyone hurt you again."

Competing inputs warred for dominance. He was sitting. He was standing. He was held against Santi's warm and solid body. He was held by chains. The pain was a memory, a phantom. The pain was real and immediate.

"Breathe, Chris. Deep and slow."

He obeyed without thinking. Nic always could get him to listen. He waited for the pain as his lungs expanded, but it didn't come. For the next few breaths, he focused on the feeling of air moving in and out, the even sound of Santi's breathing beside him. He could match his breaths to Santi's, and he did, craving even that small, simple connection between them.

"That's it. Good. Keep breathing. Can you feel my hands?"

He could. One of Santi's arms was wrapped around behind him, strong and secure, positioned to avoid the bruised spots, his hand resting on Wolfe's stomach. His stomach that felt merely sore, not throbbing with agony. Santi's other hand stroked his hair, slow and soothing. Hair that was damp, but from the shower, not from sweat. It smelled of soap, and Santi's fingers slid through it easily. With every deep, unimpeded breath, reality solidified around him. Santi sitting at his side. His cheek against Santi's chest. The soft bed beneath them.

"Yes." The word came out thin and shaky. All of him was shaky, curled in a trembling ball against Santi as if he expected another attack. On some level, he would always be bracing for the next blow, but the memory was fading, leaving behind only an echoing ache in his scars. Painful as they were when they came, the more vivid flashes of memory were in some ways easier to deal with than the nightmares or the hallucinations, once they passed. He knew what he was remembering, and approximately when it had happened - not exactly, his days in Rome blurred together too much for that, but accurately enough to put it into its context - and that meant that he could be certain that it was over. He uncurled one hand, reached over to touch Santi's thigh, firm muscle and smooth fabric beneath his palm. "It's done."

"You're going to be all right. Open your eyes. You'll feel better when you see where you are."

Wolfe looked up without lifting his head from Santi's chest, and opened his eyes to see the man he loved looking down at him, worried. "I know where I am," he said, wishing he didn't sound so weak. Keeping the tears that burned in his eyes from falling was the most that he could do, just then. "The Spanish embassy. You arranged a daring rescue for me, as I knew you would. The children are safe as well. It was only a memory, and you've driven it off."

"My fault, isn't it? I stirred something up." Santi let his hand slide down from Wolfe's head to his shoulder, fingers trailing through his hair on the way down, and traced the line of a scar. One of the ones Wolfe had reopened in his near-madness. The imagined pain vanished beneath his touch. "I'm sorry. I should have known how hard this would be. Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not now." Not ever, in all honesty. "I just want to forget."

Santi's arm tightened around Wolfe, pulling him closer, and he kissed Wolfe's forehead. "Of course. We can forget all of it." His fingers moved to another scar, further down on Wolfe's back. It had come from the very memory he had just chased away, though he couldn't have known it. "These are bothering you again, aren't they?"

It wasn't a question that demanded an answer, and Wolfe didn't answer it. The raw skin where he had rubbed and scratched until his hands came away bloody was answer enough. Foolish, to have ever thought he could keep Nic from noticing.

"I should have been there to stop this," Santi whispered, so quiet Wolfe barely heard him, following the long line of the scar with firm but gentle pressure. He stopped when he got to the four scabs where Wolfe had dug short and jagged nails into it. "Can I put some antiseptic on these? It will hurt if they get infected."

He was asking as much to alert Wolfe that he would be moving to retrieve the medicine as to seek permission, but Wolfe nodded his agreement anyway. The bitter smell of the ointment in the jar that Santi picked up from the nightstand was as familiar as the scent of paper, and it brought with it memories of training grounds and battlegrounds before Rome, and everything Santi had done for him after. Between the two of them, they had probably spent as much time injured as not. There had even been a time when it was more often him fussing over Santi's little hurts than the reverse.

Santi used too much of the ointment, as he did every time they went through this ritual, spreading it in a thick layer as if that could keep the remembered pain at bay longer or ward off infection better. He never used so much on his own cuts and scrapes. It wasn't the medicine that drove back the itching and the aching, though, but his touch, strong and loving and so very real. Wolfe relaxed into that touch, the tremors calming until only his hands were shaking, and then even those were still. Santi's fingers followed the same pattern they always did, moving from one scar to the next, leaving none untouched, lifting only for brief dips into the jar when he came to the ones that Wolfe had scraped open.

A map, Nic had called the pattern of scars once, on a night some months after Wolfe's release from Rome when he caught Wolfe staring with open revulsion at the sight of his own body in the mirror. No matter how much they faded, how small and thin most of them were, Wolfe would always find them repulsive. A map, a constellation, a tiger's stripes, a leopard's spots, a page in an unknown language, Santi could call the marks any fanciful thing he wanted and Wolfe would still hate them. 

_"You are still beautiful, Christopher. No scars could change that,"_ he had said, pulling Wolfe away from the mirror and into his arms. Nic had treated him like a god that night, offering his worshipful adoration to every inch of Wolfe's body, scars and all.  _"One day, I promise, you will forget the pain that caused these, and remember only the pleasure that you feel when I touch you."_

At a time like this, Wolfe could almost begin to believe him. He might never be so deluded as to think himself attractive, not anymore, but he could find pleasure in being touched. He could hope to forget the pain. The movement of Santi's fingers over his back felt so very good, especially as the aching in his scars faded and his lover's hand moved lower, until his fingers were slipping beneath the waistband of Wolfe's pants. Pants he had thrown on with nothing underneath in his haste to find Santi. Feelings Wolfe had thought thoroughly beaten down by the memory of Rome began to stir again, and he sighed softly when Santi's hand lifted away from his back and came up to start on his arm.

"Chris? Need me to stop?" Santi's hand froze in its place on Wolfe's shoulder, and his brow furrowed with concern, a look Wolfe found charming.

"Anything but that, please. Continue." He hesitated a moment, then added, "It feels lovely."

"Glad to hear it," Santi said with a smile that made Wolfe's pulse quicken. "Mind if I move around behind you? Would make it easier to reach the spots I haven't gotten yet."

"If you are going to continue to dote on me like this, my love, you may sit anywhere you like." He pushed himself upright to allow his partner to move, an action that took more effort than it should have. While he was sitting up, he reached for the wine, but Santi beat him to it, refilling the glass Wolfe had emptied and handing it over.

Santi took a quick sip from his own glass, then swung a leg onto the bed and shifted himself to sit behind Wolfe, one leg to either side of him. Wrapping his arms around him, he pulled Wolfe back to rest against his chest and gave him a soft kiss on the ear. "Comfortable?" he asked in a voice barely above a whisper, lips still close to Wolfe's ear.

"Gods, yes." He leaned into the security of his lover's embrace, grateful for the support of his arms. After so many nights of longing to be held like this, the reality of it was almost as intoxicating as the wine.

After leaning in for a kiss on the cheek, Santi returned to the task of tending to Wolfe's self-inflicted injuries. It wasn't so bad to be fussed over, Wolfe thought as he reclined, wine glass dangling from his hand while Santi's fingers teased their way down his arms. With the taste of the wine on his tongue and the heat of Santi's breath on his ear, Wolfe could stop thinking, stop remembering, and just feel. Some small amount of soreness remained in his scrapes and bruises, but between the wine and Nic, it was much diminished, a thing he could ignore. It had been so very long since he could find such peace, but that only made the brush of Santi's fingers on his skin and the warmth of Santi's chest against his back so much sweeter.

"Almost done," Santi said when he had finished with both arms, pulling the hair back from Wolfe's neck to expose it for a lingering kiss.

Wolfe let out a hum of pleasure and tilted his head to offer more of his neck for kissing. "And then what?"

Santi's fingers found their starting point on Wolfe's chest and began their downward journey along the path of scars. He lifted his lips from Wolfe's neck long enough to whisper in his ear, "You wished me to do penance for my behavior earlier, did you not? Shall I grovel on my knees before you?"

"Oh, I can think of better things for you to do on your knees than grovel," Wolfe said. And he could, so clearly that his pants began to feel tight and the air around him seemed hot. He took another sip of wine, but it did nothing to cool him.

Straying from their path, two fingers circled a nipple, lightly pinched the delicate skin. Wolfe drew in a sharp breath, and the shiver that went through him was entirely from pleasure. Still, Santi paused, softly asked, "Still comfortable?"

"Yes. More of that, please." He tried to sound more demanding than desperate. Talking seemed an entirely unworthy pursuit in that moment, a mere means to the end of making Nic go back to touching him.

Assured that his attentions were welcome, Santi put both his hands to good use, one returning to that delightful pinching while the other quickly finished applying medicine to the few scrapes that remained. There weren't many left, just a few spots on his stomach that had itched horribly, but Nic was nothing if not diligent, and even those dutiful touches felt good. Soon both his hands were at Wolfe's waist, and then his hips, sliding into his pants to stroke the lines of his hip bones. At the same time, his mouth returned to Wolfe's neck, and he nibbled gently from jaw to shoulder.

"Nic." The name was a gasp, a plea. His hips squirmed of their own accord against his lover's hands, and the movement carried through the rest of his body, his back sliding against Santi's chest in a way that almost obscenely hinted at other things that might slide together. The wine sloshed in the glass, spilling onto his hand, and he drank the rest of it down before he could waste more.

Santi took the empty glass from Wolfe and set it on the table, then took Wolfe's hand and brought it to his lips to lick the spilled wine from his skin with lazy strokes of his tongue. "It isn't like you to be so careless with your wine, Chris."

"I'm tired," he said, his voice turning into a moan as Santi sucked on a finger. "You're distracting."

"Hmmm." Santi kissed Wolfe's palm, then released his hand. "I can be more distracting, if you like." His hands went to the waistband of Wolfe's pants. "Especially if we get these off."

"Please do." Clothing was an unnecessary obstruction, and taking it off himself sounded like entirely too much work. Still, he shivered from the loss of Santi's warmth as his lover moved around to kneel in front of him. He leaned back on his hands as Santi unbuttoned his pants, but his arms started to shake before Santi was even done stripping him, and he gave up on remaining upright and collapsed back onto the gloriously soft mattress. There was something delightfully luxurious about lying there, staring up at the ceiling, as Santi kissed first the top of his foot, then his ankle, and worked his way up from there. The wine was going to his head, perhaps rushing in to replace blood that had moved decidedly lower.

Kissing turned to licking when Santi reached Wolfe's inner thigh, a long stroke of his tongue from leg to balls to cock that had Wolfe whining in frustration when it ended. His hips thrust reflexively upward, and he was rewarded with another stroke of that tongue, this one circling along the underside of his erection. Lifting his head from the mattress, he got a good view of his partner's face, eyes shining with desire, cheeks flushed, mouth open as he extended his tongue again. Meeting Wolfe's eyes, Santi licked his lips and grinned. "Was this what you wanted me to do on my knees?" he asked, and then made answering quite unmanageable with another application of his tongue.

When he recovered his breath, Wolfe dragged his head back up to meet Santi's eyes again. He seemed so far away in that position, impossible even to touch without the considerable effort of sitting, and Wolfe found that he wanted his lover's arms around him again even more than he wanted the pleasures that his mouth could offer. He lifted a hand that he couldn't stop from trembling and reached out for him. "Nic. Come here."

He must have sounded even more pathetic than he thought he did, because the playful look on Santi's face turned apologetic, and an instant he was up on the bed and leaning over Wolfe, holding his hand. "I'm sorry," he began, "Was that...?"

"It was wonderful," Wolfe said quickly, putting a stop to an apology he neither wanted nor needed. He smiled and said, making his tone as light as he could, "But I am a terribly greedy man, and I want more of you than that." As he spoke, he reached over the small distance between their bodies to squeeze the bulge in Santi's pants.

"And I am yours for the taking,  _amore mio_ ," Santi said, making no effort to conceal the depth of affection in his voice or his face. Somehow, he always understood, even when Wolfe couldn't find it in himself to say what he truly meant. Careful of Wolfe's sore spots, Santi gathered him into his arms and moved both of them further onto the bed to lay curled together, Wolfe on his less bruised side and Santi behind him, pressed close. "Better like this?"

Burrowing his head into a pillow even more impossibly soft than the mattress, Wolfe nodded. Though he would never admit it if asked, he enjoyed this position immensely. Their bodies fit well together, and Nic could touch him freely, while he needed only to cuddle against him and enjoy the attention.

Santi squeezed his shoulder. "Just a moment, then." He rolled away, and Wolfe felt the mattress shift as Santi stripped away his remaining clothing and reached over to the nightstand. Bottles and jars clattered together, at least one landing on the floor, and then Santi was behind him again, his erection pressing into Wolfe's thighs. Wolfe heard the lid of a bottle pop open, the slippery sound of oil-slick fingers rubbing together. Santi's other hand brushed the hair away from the back of Wolfe's neck, then came to rest on his shoulder as he kissed the newly exposed skin. "Ready?"

"Gods, yes." Ready did not begin to describe it. 

A single finger, well lubricated, slid between his lower cheeks, gently circling before pressing inward, slow and steady. For as long and as often as they'd been doing this, starting with just one finger was caution bordering on paranoia, and Wolfe groaned out his frustration as it withdrew, entered again. Normally, that would have been enough to encourage Santi to hurry things along, but this time he only squeezed Wolfe's shoulder and murmured, "I won't risk hurting you. Not now," before adding a second finger, every bit as slow and careful as the first. The tenderness in his lover's voice was as arousing as the brush of those fingers against the sensitive places within him. And Nic knew exactly how to curl and twist his fingers to send sparks of pleasure through Wolfe's body, leaving him near breathless and eager for more.

At last, the fingers withdrew and Santi replaced them with the part Wolfe really wanted. After such careful stretching, his generously oiled cock slid in easily until he was fully sheathed, and he held Wolfe in a tight embrace, pulling their bodies as close as it was possible to be. He lingered like that for the space of a few breaths, his deep and calm, Wolfe's faster and heavier, before he began, slowly, to move his hips. His hand moved down to wrap around Wolfe's cock, his thumb trailing along the top of his shaft.

It put Wolfe dangerously close to the edge, and though coherent thought was deserting him, he managed to moan out, " _Nic_ ," with just enough of a warning in his tone. Kind and considerate as Nic was being, Wolfe could not stand the thought of being so selfish as to finish so quickly, and he was in no hurry for their coupling to end, besides. Santi's hand stilled, and he loosened his grip, though he kept his hand in place. That reduction in stimulation was enough to keep Wolfe floating on the waves of pleasure that washed over him with the gentle rocking of their hips as they moved together, apart, and together again. Between kisses on Wolfe's neck, Santi whispered endearments that flowed almost nonsensically between Greek and Italian. Wolfe's own sounds were wilder things; words had fled him as he came undone in his lover's arms.

Nic's love surrounded him and filled him, and for a time, there was nothing beyond that.

Wolfe knew his partner was nearing his climax when the stream of sweet words and kisses gave way to hard and heavy breaths, and the hand on his shoulder tightened as if Santi suddenly needed to hold on to keep his balance. He brought one hand down to wrap around Santi's hand on his cock, tightening his grip again. Santi took the hint and began to stroke him in time with the rhythm of their hips. Close as he had been, it took only a few thrusts before the final spasm of pleasure tore through him, and he heard himself cry out wordlessly. Santi's answering cry came with the next thrust, and then the motion slowed until they lay still and panting, sweat-soaked and euphoric, Santi holding Wolfe close.

There was a certain openness to such moments, and Wolfe found himself saying, unbidden, "Nic, my love, you cannot imagine how much I needed this. I thought... I was afraid I would never see you again." He could feel the tingle in his eyes that foretold tears, and he blinked in a futile effort to drive them back.

Santi buried his face in Wolfe's hair. "I know, Chris. I know." He started to reach up to wipe away the tears, then froze, lifted his head to look at his hand, and swore in Italian. "What a mess we made. I don't suppose you'd care for another shower?" he asked, sitting up.

For all the fond memories Wolfe had of such showers turning into additional rounds of lovemaking, exhaustion was setting in. "You'll have to fetch me a towel," he said, offering a weak smile as he rolled onto his back. "Nothing short of Greek fire is getting me out of this bed."

Santi leaned down to kiss the tears from the corners of Wolfe's eyes, then he rolled out of bed with an ease that made Wolfe feel all the wearier and headed for the bathroom. Wolfe closed his eyes while the water ran, and had to force himself to open them again when Santi returned with a warm, soapy cloth and a fluffy towel. All hope of denying that he was tired was lost when he felt not even a spark of desire as that cloth wiped the mess of their lovemaking from his most intimate parts. He actually yawned while Santi patted him dry.

"Chris, when was the last time you slept?" Santi asked as he tugged the damp blanket out from under Wolfe. Fortunately, only the uppermost layer of the bedclothes was in need of changing; the sheets beneath remained clean and dry.

It was an interesting question. The answer very much depended on how they were defining sleep. Wolfe thought about it while Santi searched the dresser for clean blankets, and settled on a generous definition. "Last night."

Santi spread a clean blanket over Wolfe, then crawled into bed beside him. He left the glows on. Such a simple thing, that, but it warmed Wolfe's heart as much as the blanket warmed his body. There was doubt in Santi's eyes as he pulled Wolfe close so that they lay with their foreheads touching, but he only said, "You'll sleep now, won't you?"

Wolfe put an arm around him. "Promise you'll stay?" Safe as he was feeling, he didn't trust the nightmares to stay away. He didn't think he could bear to wake and find Nic gone.

"Yes," Santi said. "I promise I won't leave this bed until you wake."

Wolfe closed his eyes then, and fell asleep with Santi gently rubbing his back. For the first time in weeks, his dreams were peaceful.

**Author's Note:**

> There, I did it. I have deflowered this pairing, or something? Here's hoping others will jump on the porn bandwagon now - I'd sure like to read some.
> 
> Straight woman writing gay sex here. Hopefully I didn't botch it too badly.


End file.
